From the time of his frightening encounter with the "man in gray," who upends him and shakes him, Pip becomes penitential as he aligns himself with the man he refers to as "my convict." After he unlocks and unbolts doors as he steals the file and the mincemeat pie and brandy from Mrs. Joe's cupboard, Pip runs back to the appointed spot, but the damp seems

riveted as the iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet.

On Christmas Day, Pip is chastised by Uncle Pumblechook to be grateful to "them which brought you up by hand," and his guilt increases as he knows that Pumblechook will drink the tar water that he has put in place of the brandy. When the soldiers come to the door, Pip is "in an agony of apprehension." Then, on Joe's shoulders, Pip witnesses the apprehension of his convict as well as the other. And, as they return home, Pip feels guilty for not having told Joe all that has occurred.

Pip attends Mr. Wopsle's aunt's school and makes friends with her granddaughter, Biddy, who helps hims with his letters and numbers. When he takes his lessons home, he realizes that Joe cannot read or write. But, Joe tells Pip to teach him "on the sly" so that Mrs. Joe will not know; Pip has a new admiration for Joe, who is so loving and considerate:

I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart.

Then, when Pip is summoned to play at Miss Havisham's, much changes for the young boy. He is ridiculed for his social position, a bitter hurt now comes into his heart as the beautiful Estella calls him "a common laboring boy" who has coarse boots and coarse hands, about which Pip remarks despondently,

They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever taught me to call those picture cards jacks, which ought to be called knaves. I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too.

He meets the melancholic and eccentric Miss Havisham, who encourages Estella to break his heart, and experiences mental cruelty from her and from Estella who ridicules him for crying.

Having returned home, Pip feels more guilt after lying about his experiences at Satis House. When he confides in Joe, Pip is chastised for his lying, but told that he is not common at all. Nevertheless, Pip has learned of his social inferiority on this "memorable day."

When Pip goes with Joe to Miss Havisham's and is apprenticed, he returns to the forge, feeling that within "a single year all...was changed." About his apprenticeship, Pip declares,

I continued at heart to hate my trade and to be ashamed of home.

Later after seeing Miss Havisham again, Pip remarks,

I felt more than ever dissatified with my home and with my trade and with everything.

After Mrs. Joe is injured and Biddy comes to attend her, Pip feels happier as he has a confidante. Pip praises her for her learning, but he confides that he wants to be a gentleman; otherwise he will be miserable

unless I can lead a very different sort of life from the life I lead now.

In his misery, Pip notes,

I resolved that it was a good time and place for the admission of Biddy into my inner confidence

He promises to always tell her everything, but he feels "at the height of my perplexities" as he yet holds dear feelings for Estella.